Songs of Experience

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Plate 4

The Clod & the Pebble

Love seeketh not Itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care;

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.
So sang a little Clod of Clay,

Trodden with the cattles feet:

But a Pebble of the brook,

Warbled out these metres meet.
Love seeketh only Self to please,

To bind another to Its delight:

Joys in anothers loss of ease,

And builds a Hell in Heavens despite.
Plate 5

Holy Thursday

Is this a holy thing to see,

In a rich and fruitful land,

Babes reducd to misery,

Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song!

Can it be a song of joy?

And so many children poor,

It is a land of poverty!
And their sun does never shine.

And their fields are bleak & bare.

And their ways are fill'd with thorns

It is eternal winter there.
For where-e'er the sun does shine,

And where-e'er the rain does fall:

Babe can never hunger there,

Nor poverty the mind appall.
Plate 6

The Little Girl Lost

In futurity

I prophetic see,

That the earth from sleep,

(Grave the sentence deep)
Shall arise and seek

For her maker meek:

And the desart wild

Become a garden mild.
In the southern clime,

Where the summers prime,

Never fades away;

Lovely Lyca lay.
Seven summers old

Lovely Lyca told.

She had wanderd long.

Hearing wild birds song.
Sweet sleep come to me

Underneath this tree;

Do father, mother weep.

Where can Lyca sleep.
Lost in desart wild

Is your little child.

How can Lyca sleep,

If her mother weep.
If her heart does ake,

Then let Lyca wake;

If my mother sleep,

Lyca shall not weep.
Frowning frowning night,

O'er this desart bright,

Let thy moon arise,

While I close my eyes.
Sleeping Lyca lay;

While the beasts of prey,

Come from caverns deep,

View'd the maid asleep
The kingly lion stood

And the virgin view'd,

Then he gambold round

O'er the hallowd ground;
Plate 7
 Leopards, tygers play,

Round her as she lay;

While the lion old,

Bow'd his mane of gold.
And her bosom lick,

And upon her neck,

From his eyes of Bame,

Ruby tears there came;
While the lioness,

Loos'd her slender dress.

And naked they convey'd

To caves the sleeping maid.

The Little Girl Found

All the night in woe,

Lyca's parents go:

Over vallies deep,

While the desarts weep.
Tired and woe-begone,

Hoarse with making moan:

Arm in arm seven days,

They trac'd the desart ways.
Seven nights they sleep,

Among shadows deep:

And dream they see their child

Starved in desart wild.
Pale thro' pathless ways

The fancied image strays,